Trotlines and Fun Times

Location: Wheeler Lake - Cowford to Courtland - Alabama

Time: Morning
Air Temperature: 63 - 79 degrees during trip
Water Temperature: 74 degrees
Lake Level: 555.85' - 51,566 cfps - Perfect conditions
Weather Conditions: A little choppy & overcast, clearing as day goes.  S-SE winds 4-10 mph.

Doug and Douglas joined me on Friday afternoon to bait and prepare lines.  They had never run full scale lines, so I knew they would have a blast.  These are the lines they helped me hand build over the spring.  

We ran 100 hooks per person, which is allowed by law.  We started by running down towards Courtland and dropping a 100 hook line below the bluffs and across the mouth of a little inlet.  This one was baited 100% chicken gizzards and was in about 24 FOW.  We put the next one N-S between the island and shore in Mallard Creek.  We baited this one with live bait and it was a 50 hook line placed in 9 FOW.  We put the third line (100 hooks) on the flats behind my house and baited it with cut bait and gizzards.  We put the final 50 hook line behind the big island by Cowford landing in 6 FOW and baited it with miscellaneous gizzards, cut bait, and whatever we had left over.  

We were on the water by 7:00 AM on Saturday morning and started with the line at Cowford.  We pick up 5 fish off this line and it was a pretty normal run.  We did pick up one that weighed in at around 20 lbs and took a picture and turned it loose.  

The next line we ran was the one in Mallard Creek.  Our intent was to target flatheads on this line with live bait in shallow water.  We knew we wouldn't catch a lot on this line, but was hoping for something big.  We ended up catching 2-3 channels but nothing giant.  It still was a good run.

The 3rd line we pulled was the one in the flats behind my house.  This one did really well and caught one flathead and mix of channels and blues.  I believe we pulled in around 6-8 fish off this long line.

The final line we pulled was the one towards Courtland below the bluffs.  This one was HOT!.  We caught fish nearly every hook for the first 5-6 hooks and picked up fish throughout the entire length of the line.  Both end of the line were very heavy with fish and kept us hopping for a few minutes.  This line pulled in 20-22 nice fish and was an absolute blast.  It was an awesome way to end the day! 

In total, we ended up with 38 catfish caught.  We had turned the biggest fish loose immediately and then took to deep water for a photo op and to cull what we had kept.  We caught more fish than we needed, so we took photos and turned loose the smallest and largest of what we had.  We kept around 16 fish for the freezer.  Overall, it seemed gizzards did the best, followed by cut bait.  Deep water did the best and fish consistently were on hooks nearest the weights across all lines.  As a learning point, I will probably sink all lines in the middle from now on when running deeper than about 12-14 FOW.

We had an awesome time and I believe Doug and Douglas got a good feel for trotlining.  I think we are all ready to do it again! Our lines were all 100% hand made and I'm proud of everyone that helped us build these this spring as they proved they can produce.  

2020 Crappie Season Finale

Location: Cedar Creek Reservoir - Alabama

Time: 7:30 AM - 4:00 PM
Air Temperature: 56 degrees AM, high of 83
Water Temperature: 65 - 72 degrees  - Correct for spawn.
Lake Level: 579.98 - In range, but I like it about 1 ft higher.
Weather Conditions:5-10 mph South - Southwest.

Unless something changes, today was likely my last hurrah for 2020 spring crappie, so I went at them hard.

I started my morning by launching at Britton Bridge like I have grown accustomed to.  I hit the small little inlet on the south shore near the boat landing where I've had a little luck lately.  No luck today.  I tried a slow troll into the area and casting a jig towards the shore until I reached the back of the bay.  Once there, I tried minnows under a bobber around the log jams, but barely even a bite.  I then moved on to the bay by the boat house and tried basically the same approach and it wasn't much better.  I pulled 2-3 fish out of a bush in about 3 FOW. (8:45 AM)  About an hour and a half into the day I had one fish in the boat.

My 3rd stop was the submerged bush I've had luck with on the other side of the roadway.  Finally, I found some fish.  My first couple fish were caught with a minnow under a bobber in about 3-4 FOW.  I quickly was catching crappie one after another, but they were very small fish.  I only brought about 3 dozen minnows, and they were wreaking havoc on my minnow count, so I tried something I rarely have had success with.  I took my casting pole with a white grub jig and put a fixed bobber on it about 2 feet deep and cast it into the area I was catching the fish and begin to pop the bobber.  Much to my surprise, this worked like a charm, and I caught several more fish.  I probably caught about 8 crappie out of this bush before it was time to move on.  Only 2-3 were big enough to keep. (9:15-9:45 AM) 

My next stop was the big blown down tree on the south bank upstream of the bridge.  I've caught a bunch of fish out of there this season.  I started off with a minnow under a bobber, but couldn't get much action.  No other technique worked very good here and I only managed 3-4 crappie here with a couple of them decent size keepers.  (10:00 - 10:30 AM)

By this point, it was getting windy and I knew the north shore would be getting increasingly tough to fish, so I headed to a couple spots I want to try before it got bad enough I couldn't fish these areas.  I tried one little feeder creek a bit further up river and pulled out 2-3 more crappie with 1-2 keepers.  Here they were in about 2-3 FOW. (11:00 AM)

Next, I fished the big blown down tree in the deep water bend on the north shore. With the wind now a significant factor, I knew a bobber wasn't a good approach in structure, so I switched to vertical jigging a watermelon and chartreuse tube jig.   I trolled the edges of the structure and used a slow decent approach targeting about 6-8 feet deep in water that was 8-12 feet deep.  This was the ticket! I quickly got in a group of fish and began pulling them out quickly.  The fish here also had some size to them.  I continued this slow vertical jig approach and work the area over twice and caught 12-15 crappie here and put around 8 fish in the boat.  It was tough to keep in position with the wind, but persistence and willingness to change tactics was the key.  (11:30 - 1:00 PM) 

Once that area slowed, I headed up to Lost Creek and fished the east creek bay by that boat ramp and the boat docks on the west bank but had no luck either place.  I wend down to the new spot I found in the standing timber towards the dam on the south shore and picked up one fish and it was a keeper.  The fish were definitely starting to slow.  I moved on towards the dam and fished the beaver dam and some of the blow downs I had luck on in 2016 but couldn't pick up another bite.  

I ran back over to the bush on the other side of Britton Bridge, back to the blow down in the upstream bend, and back to the shallow inlet on the south shore by the boat ramp and all were a bust on the 2nd pass.  The crappie turned off about as fast as they had turned on.

I finished my day having caught 26 crappie with 15 keepers.  I also caught 6 other fish( 1 bass, 3 bluegill (future catfish bait), and 2 yellow bass).  The bite seemed to be the strongest between 9:45 AM and 1:00 PM.  Something about this place has always produced good mid-day bites.  I cleaned the fish and noticed they were split about 50/50 male to female.  Females were still holding eggs, but definitely ready to lay.  I'd say if weather holds, this is probably the last week of good spawn action.  I hasn't been my best year, but it's been solid.  

Time to shift gears to catfish now...